Between Us
by wishingforatypewriter
Summary: Sometimes the gap between the feeling of love and its manifestation in word or deed seemed insurmountable. (Prequel to "On Casual Commitments")
1. Chapter 1

Arato Hisako walked up the stairs to the Nakiri mansion in step with Erina, checking off items on the second seat's to-do list as they went.

"Now that the alumni banquet is over with, all there's left to do is organize your job offers into an Excel spreadsheet," the sixth seat said. "Now will it be better for you if I categorize them by name, geographic region, or number of Michelin stars?"

"Definitely by stars, but Hisako..." Erina paused to give her friend a long look, noting that she hadn't removed her broad sunglasses since before they left that morning. "Are you really okay?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, although the answer was more than clear.

It had been four days since she and Akira officially broke up. The severance had been neat as a surgeon's cut, on both of their schedules for months now.

In two weeks their class would graduate from Totsuki, and Hisako would be off to Switzerland to start her new position at the World Health Organization. Akira, on the other hand, had accepted a junior executive role at the Haubi Food Corporation, and would remain in Tokyo.

Hisako had known that they were doomed from the moment their plans solidified; she just hadn't expected it to bother her so much. She shot her friend the brightest smile she could manage, despite the fact that her eyes were still puffy from the tears they'd been leaking all week. "I'm fine, Erina-sama. Really."

"Hisako—"

"Why don't we go over all the restaurants' credentials one more time. We need to have everything in order before graduation, especially since—"

"Since you won't be there to swoop in and rescue me?" Erina raised an eyebrow.

"That's not what I meant," Hisako insisted. "It's just—" The sixth seat trailed off halfway down the hall. She froze as she heard a spirited debate coming from the direction of Alice's room.

" _You're both being utterly ridiculous, you know! Ryo-kun, please talk some sense into your friend!"_

" _It's pretty unnecessary," the fourth seat chimed in, sounding as lethargic as ever. "Just go to Switzerland. You'll get a job."_

" _Exactly!" Alice continued. "You're the third seat in Totsuki's Elite Ten; any kitchen in the world would kill to have you, but you need to take your relationship more seriously than this!"_

" _We're eighteen years old. It makes absolutely no sense to—"_

" _What makes no sense is to just break up because you're both too stubborn to admit that the relationship means something to you! I mean, you love Hishoko, don't you?"_

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Hisako turned around and bolted back down the stairs before she could hear anything else. By the time Erina caught up with her again, she was sitting outside in the garden, making a spreadsheet on her tablet.

"Do you want to know how the rest of that conversation went?" the second seat asked, taking a seat next to her.

Hisako reached beneath her sunglasses to thumb fresh tears away from her cheeks before glancing at her best friend, trying to read her expression. "I don't think I do, Erina-sama."

"Then I won't tell you," she replied. "But can I at least ask why not?"

Hisako sighed. Because if he loved her, she was a dumb bitch for leaving, and if he didn't, she was a dumb bitch for crying over a guy who didn't love her. She didn't know which would be worse at this point. "It wouldn't change anything, and it's best not to harp on things like this for too long."

Erina nodded. "You're always practical about these matters," she said. "But if you ever want to take an evening to complain and eat ice cream, I'm available."

"I might have to take you up on that later," Hisako replied. "But for now we should probably get to our closing committee meetings."

* * *

By the time Hisako reached the Alumni Relations Committee office at Totsuki's Parliament, Tadokoro-san had already printed all the necessary documents and set tea and snacks out on the coffee table.

"Thank you for updating the database while I was away," Megumi said as she took a seat on the couch.

"No problem at all, Tadokoro-san." Hisako was actually grateful to have a menial task like that to keep her mind off things. "How was New York?"

"It was amazing," Megumi said. "I've never seen anything like it."

Hisako smiled. Finally some good news! "Did you and Yukihira get everything settled with the apartment?"

The dark haired girl nodded a few times. "We put down a deposit on place on the west side of Queens. It's really a really convenient location because we both need to go into Manhattan for work."

"You took the job at the Ritz, right?" Hisako asked, recalling that a number of luxury hotels had been courting her for the past few months.

Megumi nodded."I got to visit the hotel while Souma-kun was meeting with Shinomiya-senpai. It's right across the way from Central Park."

"That sounds nice," Hisako replied. Tadokoro-san's entire setup—moving clear across the world with her high school sweetheart, putting down roots in a brand new city—sounded almost too good to be true. And Hisako knew for a fact that it actually was. "Tadokoro-san, I don't mean to pry, but...have you put any thought into Doujima-san's offer?"

At the alumni banquet, Hisako overheard the legendary chef ask Tadokoro Megumi to be his second in command. It was clearly his intention to groom her into the next head of the Totsuki Tourism Division.

For a fraction of a second, Megumi's smile faltered, and Hisako spotted a flash of longing in her golden eyes. But the expression was gone as fast as it came. "The Ritz was my best offer in New York," she said simply. "And it this point, I'm more sure about Souma-kun than I am about anything else."

Hisako had assumed that it would be something like that. As soon as Shinomiya Kojirou had announced plans to open his third restaurant in the heart of Manhattan, everyone knew he would offer the head chef position to Yukihira Souma. "Does Yukihira know about the offer?"

Megumi shook her head. "I haven't told anyone, not even my family back home. And...I'd really appreciate if it stayed between the two of us, Arato-san."

"Of course," Hisako assured, thanking the gods that she'd been too grief-stricken over the weekend to mention it to Erina. "You are truly an amazing person, Tadokoro-san."

"I think you are too, Arato-san. You're incredibly strong," Megumi replied, and in that moment Hisako adored her for leaving the rest unsaid.

* * *

As Nakiri Erina sat atop her desk with a handful of playing cards and a handle of whiskey, she wondered why she had made the mistake of assuming the annual report would get written today. That Yukihira Souma always had a unique talent for distracting her. Her lips curved downward into a frown as she realized her days would soon be excruciatingly productive.

"What's with that face, Nakiri?" the first seat asked her, grinning. "You realized that you're never gonna beat me at spades?"

"Please. You say that like you've actually won before." Erina rolled her eyes, mentally berating herself for letting her melancholy show. "I was just thinking of how pitifully small that apartment you showed me was. Where on earth is poor Tadokoro-san supposed to put her dresses?"

"Nakiri, most women don't have half the dresses you do."

"And that ought to be a crime," she replied. "Seriously, you better not screw things up in New York. It would be extremely embarrassing for me to have lost the first seat to a chef who crashed and burned in his first year out of school?"

Souma gave her a long look. "Is that your way of saying good luck?"

"A-absolutely not! My concern is solely for my reputation and the welfare of Tadokoro-san!"

"Whatever you say, Nakiri," he said before taking another sip from the bottle of Jack. Erina did all she could to keep from blushing over the fact that his lips were where her lips had just been. _Why oh why was she still thinking this way about her friend's boyfriend?_ "Have you decided what you're gonna do with yourself yet?"

Erina shrugged. "All I know is that I want to leave the country," she said. "I might try freelancing for a while like Saiba-sama."

"I could see you doing that," he said. "Making restaurants all over the world that much more obsessed with that damn tongue of yours."

Erina's eyes narrowed as she searched for something back-handed in the comment. After sensing nothing, she relented. "We should call it a night. I don't trust either one of us to write a report in this state."

"We can always delegate to Takumi," Souma pointed out.

"Takumi?" Erina's brow furrowed. "Why would a task like that go all the way down to the seventh seat?"

"We're drunk, Hayama's depressed, Kurokiba and Alice won't do it, and Arato is probably busy with the rest of your work."

"Ah." All of that sounded about right. When on earth had they become this bad at their jobs?

"Can I walk you back to the mansion?" he asked, and she said yes even though there was a driver waiting for her outside.

The air was warm and fragrant with the scent of dewy grass and newly-bloomed flowers. Perhaps for the first time since they met, they wasted no time bickering, both of them sensing the end of an era.

"Night, Nakiri," he said once they were in front of the mansion's wrought-iron gates.

"Yukihira-kun," she said, just as he turned to leave.

"What's up?"

Before Erina could think better of it, she was hugging him, long and hard and just barely skirting the line between friendship and that which lied beyond it. Her eyes brimmed with tears as he returned the embrace, and she tried her best not to dwell on how well her face fit in the space between his neck and shoulder. The romantic in her wanted to believe it meant something, but she had closed her eyes to such thoughts long ago.

"Take care of yourself," she whispered through a boulder-sized lump in her throat.

And then she was walking swiftly through the gates, up the ramp, and into the mansion. She didn't turn back even once.

 **Author's Notes:** Hi everyone! This story is meant to function as a prequel to On Casual Commitments and provide some more context for the events of that fic. However, you don't have to have read it to understand this story. I'm going to address what characters were up to in the years after graduating from Totsuki and answer some questions that were left unanswered by the end of On Casual Commitments, so if you have anything you'd like me to address, please let me know! Thanks for reading, everyone, and have a great day!


	2. Chapter 2

It was the evening after graduation, and despite the monumental nature of the occasion, there were no parties to be had; there was no time. Yoshino Yuki, the 92nd generation's chief party planner, had jetted off to Germany mere hours after the ceremony. Ibusaki Shun and Sakaki Ryoko had taken a bullet train to Osaka to sign their lease soon after, and everybody else was packing, shipping, leaving.

Nakiri Alice reclined on a beach chair as she watched Ryo, Akira, and an assortment of rent-a-hunks packing two moving vans with approximately one third of her worldly belongings. She had really managed to carve out a little haven for herself in this mansion that had always been more Erina's than hers.

She smiled when she saw the third seat—former third seat now—walking towards her. "You're such a good friend, offering to help me out like this."

"I did no such thing," Akira said with a scowl. "You said you wanted to have a drink and say goodbye—"

"And we will," she promised, "but it would be irresponsible not to pack when Ryo-kun and I are leaving tomorrow, right?"

He gave her a tired look, one imbued with the knowledge that arguing with her would only serve to stress him further. "Anyway, where are the rest of the shipping labels?"

"No clue," Alice replied. "You'll have to ask Hishoko. She's the one who's been dealing with the companies for me."

"And what have you been doing?"

"Only planning to open the hottest new restaurant Europe has seen since the launch of the original Shino's."

"What are you talking about? Wasn't Shino's a failure in the beginning—"

"An insignificant detail," she said, waving him off. "Anyway, would you mind grabbing those labels so the rest of my things actually make it back to Copenhagen?"

Akira sighed as all the pieces fell into place. "You asked her for the wrong amount on purpose, didn't you?"

"Now why would I do something like that?" Alice asked, crossing one leg over the other. "It's not like two of my closest friends are being completely irrational and avoiding each other when they could just be normal about the situation."

It was at that moment precisely when he decided that he'd rather just get the labels from Arato than be subjected to another of Alice's breaking-up-with-her-was-stupid-and-now-you'll-die-alone lectures.

The walk down the labyrinthine halls of the Nakiri mansion was a feat of muscle memory. He had done it too many times in the dead of night back in the days when Arato was keeping their relationship a secret from Nakiri Erina.

When he reached her suite of rooms, he found the door already open. Arato was on her knees in front of a vintage travel trunk, trying to keep it closed with all her might. Akira stood there for a moment, just leaned against the doorframe and memorized her—from the short hair beginning to slip from her high ponytail to the ink and tea tree smell that always clung to her skin.

Hisako heaved a deep sigh, her shoulders looking heavy with the weight of it. "I knew it was you," she said, even before she turned around. "You have a louder stare than anyone I've ever known."

He couldn't stop himself from smirking. She always got extra blunt when she was tired. "Need help?"

"If you wouldn't mind," she said, and then he held down the top of the trunk so she could finally snap the gold clasps into place. "Thank you."

"Anytime," he told her, both meaning it and not. Soon 'anytime' would no longer be feasible.

Hisako's lips twitched into a weak smile. "Why are you here in the first place?"

"Alice ran out of shipping labels and—"

"I asked her a million times if she needed more than what she took! Honestly!" She went over to the file cabinet and pulled out a manila envelope holding all their friend would need and more. "Give her these, and then tell her we're on speaking terms again so she'll stop hounding us."

"Thanks, Arato," he said.

"Wait." It was almost like she heard the exit in his voice. Hisako turned on her heel and went into her walk-in closet, the one that housed books and herbs and relatively little by way of clothing. She came back out holding a glass jar filled with one of her signature tea blends. "This is for Professor Shiomi. I remember she really liked this one."

"She did," he confirmed, glancing down at the tumeric and ginger green tea blend. "Jun had something for you too, a book I think. Text me your address in Switzerland and I'll mail it to you."

"That's unnecessary. I'll just get it from you in Tokyo," she replied. "I'm not leaving right away. I'm going to take some university courses online—nutrition, public health—before I start work in the summer."

"So you'll be around?"

"Yeah, for a few weeks," she said, her eyes dusky with the ghost of an invitation as she rubbed at the nape of her neck.

Akira thought of how easy it would be to kiss her then, to descend back into old habits—discard pragmatism and high-mindedness and a few articles of clothing. But he soon returned to his senses and made up his mind to leave his ex-girlfriend in peace.

And then she kissed him.

* * *

"And then I kissed him," Hisako said with a sigh, holding out her wineglass for Ikumi to refill with pinot noir.

"Hisako!" Erina shrieked. "What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't thinking," the pink haired girl admitted, burying her face in one of Ikumi's velvety couch cushions. "He wasn't either. This is the precise reason why we'd been avoiding each other since the breakup, but because of Alice and her constant meddling we—"

"Didn't stop at kissing, did ya?" Ikumi asked with a cheshire-cat grin. "You did get here kinda late, Arato."

Erina watched in fascination as her best friend's face flushed maraschino cherry red. While she did have some inkling after walking in on them making out in the copy room, Hisako was always extremely tight-lipped about how far things went between her and Hayama-kun.

"We enjoyed ourselves," Hisako said after clearing her throat, and Erina knew that was all she would tell them. "At any rate, where's that pizza you said was coming?"

Just then the doorbell rang.

"It's open, babe!" Ikumi shouted without moving an inch from the couch.

"How are you, _amore_?" Takumi asked as he entered, carrying three pizzas in Trattoria Aldini boxes. Isami and Yukihira came in after him, bearing spirits and mixers.

Erina smiled a bit as she watched Takumi and Ikumi share a chaste kiss. _Must be nice._

"Yo Nakiri! You want a drink?" Yukihira asked when he spotted her.

Erina shook her head, holding up her glass of wine. "I'm all set," she said before shifting her gaze to the pizzas. "Which one did you make?"

"Chorizo and chili," he said. "I'll go grab you one."

"What are you even doing here?" Erina asked when he returned to her. "You better not be leaving Tadokoro-san to do all the packing by herself."

"She's seeing Yoshino off at the airport," he explained. "I'm gonna go pick her up soon."

"Ah, so that's why you're still sober," Erina replied with a smirk. "When are you two leaving?"

"Two weeks. We're gonna visit her family out in Tohoku before we go."

"Ah," Erina said as something grew cold within her. "Try not to let them know how much of an idiot you are. They must be worried enough already about her moving all the way to New York City."

Souma grinned at her. "You know, when I talked to pops he said the same thing."

They shared a laugh at this. Then, wordlessly, Erina stood and headed out to the balcony, and wordlessly he followed.

"Lot of stars out tonight," he noted.

Erina smirked. "Do they still look like salmon roe to you?"

"You're really never gonna let that go?"

"Nope," she said, giggling. "You know, even though you're somewhat successful now, you'll always be a fool to me."

"Thanks, Nakiri."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"I know," he replied. "I don't know what I'd do if you weren't always so tough on me."

The world around her grew opaque as she was pinned beneath his golden-eyed stare. The tension of words unspoken gripped at her like a tangible thing. She wondered, not for the first time, what would actually happen if she just came right out and said it.

"O-obviously," Erina stammered once she could find her voice again. "If allowed to rest on our laurels, even people like us would become complacent. It'd be embarrassing for me to have lost to my seat to a chef who stagnated, so it's not something you have to thank me for."

Souma grinned at her. "You say that, but—"

"But what, Yukihira-kun?" she asked, flipping her hair back indignantly.

"But you never tried to take the first seat back. I always figured you would."

Erina managed to give an unbothered shrug despite the rapid beating of her heart. "By that point, I had other things on my mind."

"Career stuff?"

"What else is there?" she asked, and he gave her a look that let her know he agreed on some subterranean level. "My only goal is to stand at the pinnacle of the gourmet world."

"Get there quick, Nakiri, so I can come knock you down."

Erina scoffed. "You can try."

"I will. But in the meantime, I've got something for you." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a monogrammed leather passport holder. Erina could tell from the look of it that it was a little more expensive than he could afford.

"Thank you," she said, taking it in her hands, her god tongue heavy with a different set of words.

An alarm went off on Souma's phone just then. "Shit! I'm late to pick up Tadokoro."

Erina shook her head. "You better go get her, then."

"See you around, Nakiri! The next time we run into each other, I'll be much stronger than this."

"You better be," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, "or else I'll use you as a dishrag."

"It's a promise," he told her, and then he was gone.

Erina waited for a few minutes and then went back into the living room and poured herself another glass of wine.

 **Author's Notes:** Thanks for reading, guys! After the next chapter (which I think will be mostly Ryoali and Akisako) there are going to be some significant time skips because Souma and Erina won't see each other for a few years post-Totsuki.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a twenty minute taxi ride from Haneda Airport to Hayama Akira's new apartment in Minato, and just a month ago he wouldn't have been able to afford either the ride or the high rise.

While working for the Sendawara sisters would surely take years off his life in the long run—he couldn't believe he had just spent twenty of the last twenty-four hours writing that damn report—it did come with some immediate benefits.

Still, it was going to take him at least three glasses of scotch to shake the sense of melancholy that came with spending weeks searching for new spice plants mere kilometers away from the slum in which he'd been born.

But before Akira could make it from the door to the liquor cabinet, a familiar aroma caught his attention. Within two seconds he knew for certain that Arato Hisako was in his kitchen, and that she was making something with roast pork and eggplant.

He watched her for a moment—the easy way she traipsed around a kitchen she had only been in a handful of times, doling out precise measurements of herbs and shaoxing wine. It was almost too easy to imagine that she wouldn't be gone in a matter of days.

"You're awful at being busy," Hisako said once she'd noticed him. There had never been room for senseless greetings between them. "You call yourself a chef, but there was almost nothing in that fridge of yours before I got here."

"I've been away for work," he replied, slightly amused by how little time it took her to start nagging.

"You look like death," she said before turning back to her cooking. "I just knew that manipulative cougar was going to—"

Akira sighed, running a hand over his face. "Arato, don't start this again." She had been against his decision to join the Habui Food Corporation from the very beginning—and not only because it would put an ocean between them.

As much as he valued her opinion—and he did, despite all the shit she said to Alice whenever she didn't get her way—there was only so much about needing money that the heiress of an ancient clan could comprehend.

"I'm just saying, you can only do so much for Shiomi-san if you drop dead." She removed the pot from the stove and made two plates. After she put them down on the kitchen table, Akira wrapped an arm around her waist.

She glanced up at him, trying to look annoyed despite her vermilion blush. "What do you want from my life?"

"I hope you know that you're extremely bad at being an ex-girlfriend."

Hisako smirked then stole a kiss much longer than either of them should have let it last. "Although I know how much you love to point out my many limitations, that sounds like a you problem, Hayama Akira."

 _Indeed it was._ But he would be the last person in the world to stand between her and a job at the fucking World Health Organization.

"When are you leaving?"

"Wednesday," she said. "I'm meeting Erina-sama in Spain before I start work in Geneva."

"You need help getting your stuff to the airport?"

Akira knew that virtually all their friends had vanished in the weeks since graduation. Alice and Kurokiba headed back to Denmark first. Then Yukihira and Tadokoro bolted for New York, after which Nakiri Erina decided she would get over her unrequited love by travelling the world via private jet. Even after six years of Totsuki, the logic of rich people still astounded him.

"I'm having a shipping company pick up my things before I go," she explained. "Besides, I don't think it would be a good idea for you to see me off."

"Why?"

"You know why," she said with an exasperated sigh, which of course only led him to kiss her again.

By the time they finally came up for air, his shirt was off and her stockings were on the floor.

Hisako smoothed her hands over her miniskirt. "We should eat."

"You're right," he said, shaking his head.

Before graduation they had decided to prioritize their respective careers, agreed that a clean break would be best for both of them. So how had it turned out like this so quickly—boundaries blurred to nonexistence?

They both knew that she was still going to Europe, _and_ that she was going to spend the night.

* * *

Nakiri Alice woke up with a grin and a dainty yawn as the still-brisk air blew in through her window. The longer she spent back in Copenhagen, she became that much surer that she had been away for too long.

Although she had learned a lot at Totsuki—significantly more than she expected to—and missed her school friends terribly, she was glad to get away from the academy. With each moment she spent out of Erina's shadow, she grew stronger, more focused.

The idea that had been rattling around in her head for months, the one that had made her turn down job offers from elite kitchens, research labs, and culinary magazines around the globe was beginning to solidify. And although it had been her plan to sleep in each day until the end of summer, she knew she had to get up before the inspiration left her.

Ryo entered the food laboratory in their massive triplex with a breakfast tray just as Alice finished testing out a potential menu item.

"Since when are you awake before noon?" he asked.

"How utterly disrespectful," Alice said, removing her goggles and unbuttoning her lab coat. "And here I was patiently waiting for you to be done with your workout so I could give you your presents."

"Presents?" the dark haired chef asked, a quizzical expression on his face. "It's not—"

"Wrap that up to go," she said, referring to the full English breakfast he had made 'for her' even though he'd inevitably end up eating the majority of it. "I have lots to get done today, and so do you!"

"Didn't you say you wanted to relax for a while after graduation—"

"I'll have plenty of time to relax when I'm eighty and retired and my brilliant grandchildren are building on my legacy, but now we have to get moving!"

"Where are you trying to go?"

"Glad you asked." Alice reached into the deep pockets of her lab coat and fished out the keys to a brand new BMW. "These are for you. Drive to the location programmed into the GPS to find your second surprise."

"Alice," he said, looking at her with a blend of his usual nonchalance and some significant incredulity. "My birthday isn't until next month—"

"Excuse me, how long have I known you?" she retorted, arms crossed over her chest. "That was some peak Leo shit if I ever did hear it. But we do need to get going. I have a meeting with the contractor in two hours."

As they drove in the general direction of the harbor, Alice wondered how long it would take him to notice where they were going. The last time they had been around these parts, they were fourteen years old, and she had just convinced him to follow her to a boarding school halfway around the world.

Every now and then she wondered what made him do it that first time—before they were romantically involved, before he had any real reason to believe anything she said about shokugekis and stagiaires and crossing blades with some of the best cooks in the world.

"We're going to the pub, right?" he asked while they were still fifteen or so minutes away from it.

"You're no fun," Alice said, pouting. "I figured we could borrow the kitchen there like we used to."

"You know the original owner died two years back," Ryo told her. "Management's changed a few times since then."

"I doubt that will be a problem," the Nakiri heiress replied, holding back an impish grin. "The customers will remember us, anyway."

When they pulled up in front of the storied pub, the entire kitchen staff was waiting outside. Some were veterans from the eatery's glory days, but there were also fresh faces. A few regular customers were also milling about, waiting in anticipation.

"The hell is all this?" Ryo asked his girlfriend.

"They're just excited to greet the new owner," she said, waving at the assembled from inside the luxury car. "This place has seriously lost its edge while we were away."

"You really bought this pub?"

"Only in the most technical sense."

"Meaning?"

"It's all in your name," Alice explained with an offhand wave. "I arranged everything with the old man before he passed away."

"Come on, don't look at me like that," she said when he finally seemed to process what she had done. "I know what kind of jobs you turned down just to follow me back here. This really isn't that much in comparison."

"You're fucking insane, Alice." He kissed her, and she smiled into it. If not for her schedule and the people outside, she'd have kept at it forever.

"I love you too," she said when they parted.

"Thanks for this."

"Yeah, yeah, just get in there before your customers starve half to death," she replied. "The lunch rush should have started ten minutes ago, no?" Just then her driver arrived in the usual limo, waiting to escort her to the site of her forthcoming restaurant. "See you tonight. I'll make dinner if I get home first."

From the window of her limo, Alice watched her boyfriend pull on his red bandanna and start barking orders at his kitchen staff without wasting a moment.

Today made it official. They were the first owner-chefs of Totsuki's 92nd generation, and they'd be amassing media attention and Michelin stars in no time flat. She released a contented little sigh as the driver took off.

Who said a girl couldn't have everything?

 **Author's Notes:** Thanks for reading, everybody! I hope you enjoyed it! Also, I'd really appreciate if you all could let me know how much SouMegu you can tolerate in this story. At this point in time, Souma and Megumi would be in the honeymoon phase of their relationship and I'd like to dramatize the events leading up to the break up. However, as this is a Sorina story, I don't want to put too much focus on it.


	4. Chapter 4

It was just after 2:30 am when Souma made it back to his small Queens apartment. The soft opening of Shino's New York was tomorrow—tonight, technically—and it had occurred to him ten minutes before he was supposed to go home that the tables were arranged all wrong.

He was just locking the door behind him when Megumi padded out of the bedroom, rubbing her eyes. She wore a navy blue bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, and her hair hung loose around her shoulders.

Souma grinned upon seeing her, and leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Sorry I woke you."

"It wasn't you," she said, smiling a little. "The upstairs neighbors were playing dubstep."

"Again?"

She nodded. "I climbed up the fire escape and gave them a stern talking to, so it should be okay from now on."

Souma raised his eyebrows a bit at this. Even after three years, she still surprised him every single day. "Hope you didn't scare 'em too much."

"Just enough." Megumi giggled a bit, and then stifled a small yawn. "What kept you out so late?"

"More stuff at the restaurant," he said, shaking his head. There was always something to attend to—the fonts on the menus, the cushions on the seats, the lighting. This was nothing like running the diner with his pops.

"Are you coming straight to bed or do you want something to eat first?" Megumi asked. "I can cook if you're too tired."

"Actually, I'm gonna try revising the recipes for one or two of the menu items."

A small crease formed between Megumi's brows. "Souma-kun."

"I'll only be a couple of minutes," he assured her, "an hour tops, but you should get back to bed. Executive chef's work is never done, right?"

Megumi shrugged a bit, as if to say she knew he was deflecting and she wasn't having any of it.

"You and Shinomiya-senpai spent all summer working on that menu. Everything on it is world class cuisine, and I can say that for sure because you had me taste test at every stage."

Just then, she took his left hand in her right, drew the kanji for person with her thumb, and left a lingering kiss on the center of his palm.

Souma sighed, feeling a bit of the stress leave him. "Tadokoro—"

"It's not like you to be so anxious, Souma-kun," she said. "No matter what, tomorrow is going to be fine."

With that she went back into the bedroom, leaving the door cracked behind her. It was a quiet invitation; she wouldn't push the matter more than that.

Souma was poised to follow her in when his phone started ringing. It was an international number, the country code for which he couldn't quite place. Thinking it was one of the restaurant's ingredient suppliers, he decided to pick up. It'd take five minutes, ten. He'd catch Tadokoro before she fell asleep again.

"Hello?"

"I read in _Food & Wine_ that your opening's today."

Of all the voices in the world, Souma hadn't expected hers to be the one on the other line. "Nakiri?"

It had been nothing but radio silence from her since graduation, even in the group chat with Alice, Hayama, Arato, and Kurokiba.

"Just calling to remind you not to fuck up."

"I'll try not to." He laughed. "Where the hell are you now anyway?"

"Abu Dhabi. At brunch."

"Nice." Souma could see her now, walking away from an ornate table overflowing with delicacies she knew she could have made better. He paused for a moment. "Nakiri, let me ask you something."

She sighed into the receiver. "If you must."

"Hypothetically, let's say you're opening a restaurant, and you're considering making a last-minute change to the menu."

"I'd say it's generally inadvisable," Erina replied, and he could hear her measuring her words the way she did sometimes, like she wasn't sure how much of the answer she'd give him this time. "And wildly eccentric. It would be a huge inconvenience to the printers, the serving staff, the sommelier."

Souma nodded a few times. "You're right about that, but—"

"I'm not finished," Erina said. "Doing something like that would be a huge risk and cause immeasurable trouble for all parties involved, but at the same time, I'd never put out a dish I'm not fully confident in."

"So what you're saying is—"

"I'm saying you don't have time to be talking to me right now, Yukihira-kun. Now get to work. It'd bring shame upon the academy if you were to sully the reputation of Shino's."

Then, in classic Nakiri fashion, she hung up before he could thank her. Souma knew better than to try the number again.

He shook his head, then headed towards the kitchen. There'd be no rest if he wanted the reviews to leave his rival speechless from halfway across the globe.

* * *

"Sorry about that," Erina said as she returned to her table. Across from her was Elaine Shiraz, a young culinary blogger she'd befriended on her travels.

"No worries," she assured. "But did I hear you mention Shino's just now? One of my colleagues is covering the New York opening tomorrow and I'm about to die from jealousy."

Erina shook her head a little. "I did mention it."

"Everyone at True Taste is freaking out because Chef Shinomiya picked a new graduate as chef de cuisine over his tried and tested sous chefs in Paris and Tokyo."

At this, Erina smiled a bit. It wouldn't make much sense to North American publications like True Taste Magazine. For those outside of Totsuki and its affiliate organizations, Yukihira Souma had been an unknown until this year's BLUE. "Your fellow correspondent will understand when she tries his cooking."

"That's right," Elaine said, taking a small sip of her mimosa. "You and this Chef Yukihira were schoolmates. Tell me, what kind of cook is that person?"

With a sigh, Erina polished off the second bellini she had to order to work up the nerve to call him, and then waved the waiter over to bring her a third. "What I'm about to say stays off record," she explained, a hint of a threat in her voice.

Elaine nodded. "That goes without saying. Your friend Hisako made me sign an airtight contract after we first met in Madrid."

 _Of course she had._

Even when she was working fifty hour weeks and earning a degree in Nutritional Science, Hisako still somehow found the time to mother her.

"The thing about Yukihira is he's an impertinent upstart, and his style is woefully pedestrian, but despite all that…" She sighed. There was no easy way to put this. "In the kitchen, he's a genius. His dishes change people, and I have to say that I had no particular love of food or passion for cooking before I met him."

When she finished speaking, Erina downed the third bellini in one go, her face flushed beyond belief. She had never admitted all of that to anyone, not even Hisako.

"Follow up question," Elaine said.

"Go."

"Are you two still together? Because I was going to set you up with someone. He and my boyfriend are gonna be at the Emirates Palace later tonight."

"Yukihira and I never dated, and we never will." At this point, Erina was contemplating a fourth drink. "And who is this person you wanted me to meet?"

"Only the son of the world's biggest luxury aircraft supplier," she said. "He studies business at Oxford and bankrolls a charity dedicated to stamping out hunger—not to mention the fact that he's a huge foodie—"

"Only plebs call themselves foodies."

"Sorry, a huge culinary enthusiast. And he can't wait to meet you—if you're up for it, that is."

Erina made a face, stewing as she considered her options. The devious voice in the back of her mind, which sounded suspiciously like Alice, screamed that it was about time for her to have some fun. "What's he look like?"

Elaine pulled up a picture on her phone, and Erina was immediately stunned by the worldly-looking gentleman in the impeccably tailored suit. This was exactly the kind of person she could have pictured herself with before that red-haired fool came along and ruined her.

She knew just by looking that she'd go through the motions with this man, allow him to court her and date him for just under a year. If upon dumping him she could convince herself to feel the slightest bit sad, she'd know that it was working, and try again with the next well-connected gentleman she'd meet through a third-tier friend.

"Attractive enough," she said. "I'll meet him."

And to make sure the attraction stuck, she would be sure to ignore all her favorite culinary magazines and blogs for the next several days.

 **Summary** : And so begins Erina's complex romantic history lol (Hisako will start dating professional athletes a few months after this). Thanks for reading, everyone! Have a great day!


	5. Chapter 5

It was a weekend that had been on the schedule of every well-connected gourmand for months now. At the tender age of nineteen and a half, Nakiri Alice would launch her debut restaurant, Deconstruct Denmark in the heart of Copenhagen.

Every Totsuki alum knew it was inadvisable to become an owner-chef right out of school; it was far more prudent to work in an established kitchen for a few years, to learn the ins and outs of the culinary business from up close. But Alice had never been one to adhere to tradition, and everyone in her social circle knew better than to try and convince her otherwise.

"I have to say, this seems like one of her better ideas," Akira told Souma and Ryo, as they kicked back in the latter's living room, watching a football match on TV.

Ryo nodded his agreement, pouring a shot of vodka. "She's never been this focused. It's scary." He then glanced at the collection of shot glasses Souma had brought for them. "Weren't you in Nairobi last year?"

"Tadokoro and I decided to drop by again before we came here."

"How the hell do you have so many vacation days?" Hayama asked, although they all knew the answer. After he'd earned two Michelin stars for Shino's New York, Shinomiya was doing everything within his power to keep his chef de cuisine from leaving to open his own restaurant.

Souma merely shrugged. "How the hell are you making Wall Street money putting spice blends together?" he countered. From his condo in Tokyo's financial district to the platinum watch adorning his wrist, it was painstakingly clear that Hayama Akira was making serious bank at the Habui Food Corporation.

Ryo merely shook his head at his two closest friends, then pulled out his red bandana. "How the fuck is it that neither of you have opened a restaurant yet? The hell are you waiting for, a personal invitation in the goddamn Michelin guide? Or are you just afraid you can't measure up?"

"I don't know if Hayama can still cook with that Rolex weighing him down, but I'll take you on right here, right now."

By then, Akira was already in the kitchen, typing up his hair. "Are you two imbeciles just going to keep talking shit, or are we doing this?"

By the time Alice got in the house, flanked by Erina and Hisako, the three were embroiled in an intense culinary battle. Alice shook her head as the familiar scent of spices, sauces, and roasting meat wafted out from the kitchen.

"I truly envy the two of you," she said, as she reclined on one of the couches, waiting for the inevitable moment when they'd be asked to taste test. "You must have so much peace and quiet living by yourselves."

"I should probably head back to my hotel," Erina said, redistributing the weight of her bags from one arm to the other.

"Same here," Hisako said, nodding. "I still have some work to get done on the new campaign."

Alice shot them both a sidelong glance, and then moved to block the doorway, cheeks puffed out in a dramatic pout. "Oh no you don't. You two are here to support me, so there will be absolutely no running away until Deconstruct opens."

"Alice," Erina hissed in a sharp whisper. "Yukihira and I never—"

"Don't start, Erina!" the white haired Nakiri fired back. "Now, I don't know about you, but I'm going to see what's going on in the kitchen."

Erina hated herself for following her cousin. She truly did. But some insidious blend of longing and curiosity hijacked the common sense that should have ruled her.

When they got to the kitchen, those three idiots were putting the finishing touches on their dishes, talking shit all the while. Alice chuckled at the scene, then pulled out her phone and started recording for her followers on Instagram.

Erina took the moment to observe the rival she hadn't seen in almost two years, so immersed in his cooking he had no clue she was standing there. He still seemed so relaxed in the kitchen, like a jazz musician free-styling a solo.

She saw the makings of a masterpiece forming in his cooking station, and her heart began to pound with a desire to taste it.

"So are you going to let us judge or what?" Alice asked, bringing their attention over to the doorway.

In the moments that followed, three things happened.

The first—Erina watched Yukihira Souma's face morph from surprise to more surprise, before a fond expression warmed his honey eyes.

The second—He crossed the room to her in three bold steps, and before she knew the ceiling from the floor, he was hugging her.

"Yo, Nakiri," he said, and she wondered how that two word greeting, irreverent and colloquial and inappropriate as it was for addressing someone of her station, always managed to sound like home. "It's been a while. Don't be such a stranger, yeah?"

"Yeah, yeah," Erina said, rolling her eyes as she reluctantly pried herself out of his grasp. "You better not have made trash, or I'll tell the Michelin inspectors to come take those stars back."

"Typical Nakiri," he said, shaking his head. "I'll let the food speak for itself. You might want to sit down for this."

Erina scoffed. "You might want to remember who the fuck it is that you're talking to," she replied, even as she made herself comfortable atop the kitchen island. "You still have not proven yourself to me, Yukihira."

The third—the dish he'd come up with, a Kenyan inspired risotto, wrested the breath from her lungs. Only years of practice at seeming unimpressed kept her from crying out.

"How does it taste, Nakiri?" he asked, grinning impishly. Erina rolled her eyes and fanned her cheeks discreetly, trying to ward off the heat rising in them.

She waved him off. "Leave me be, already. I still have two dishes to sample."

The results of the match were ultimately inconclusive, with Alice favoring Kurokiba's Nordic paella and Hisako begrudgingly choosing Hayama's mutton biryani. The stalemate, of course, galvanized the rivals into crossing blades again.

And so the evening went, the six old friends cooking and eating and drinking and arguing. As she watched Alice and Ryo go head to head over a minor lovers' quarrel, Erina tried to shake the feeling that this was how things were meant to be.

"Do you think I should put that coq au vin Ramen on the Shino's menu in the spring?" Yukihira asked, once he noticed that she was still sipping the broth.

Erina shook her head. "You can't go on like this, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"You need to stop giving specialty-level dishes to Shinomiya-senpai," she explained, as though it were simple arithmetic. "You want to open your own place soon, don't you?"

He sighed, shrugging a bit. "I don't know—"

"Yes, you do," Erina said. "For better or for worse, you have always known what you wanted, Yukihira."

"Is that how it looks?" he asked, scratching the back of his head.

It took everything within Erina not to reach over and place her hand on top of his, not to cross the line she'd been tightrope walking over for years now. Instead she reached for her whisky and coke, tossed it back, and turned to him.

"Come up to the roof with me?" She didn't mean for it to come out as a question, but still he nodded and followed her up to the top of the massive triplex.

Erina was poised to sit down and provide whatever tough-love speech he needed to get over this quarter life crisis when she spotted a familiar pink head of hair thrown back in ecstasy. A spice expert who shall remain unnamed started to unbutton her blouse.

She sighed. _Oh, Hisako._

"When the hell did they even get up here?" Yukihira asked as they turned around and headed back down the stairs.

"Who knows?" Erina shook her head. "I owe Alice fifty euros now."

When they got back downstairs, Alice and Ryo had finished their duel and retired to their bedroom.

"I forgot this is what happens when we all hang out," Souma said.

Erina chuckled a bit. "I'm sorry. Did you say something, wheel six?"

"Why do I have to be six?"

"Because you're not as relevant as me," she explained.

They bantered like this for another hour, two. Pretended not to notice Akira and Hisako leaving together. Joked about it once they were gone. Drank.

The clock was easing past midnight when Souma glanced down at his phone. Erina presumed it was a string of texts from Tadokoro that brought him back to his senses.

"I should head back to my hotel," he said, as he scrolled through his messages.

"You should've left hours ago." And a better friend would have told him to do so.

"Tell me it won't be another year and a half before I see you again."

Erina shrugged nonchalantly. How bold of him to assume the separation had been more difficult for him. "I mean, if you decide to open a restaurant, I'd come to the launch."

He nodded a few times, looking like he couldn't quite believe her. "So that's how it is?"

"That's how it's always going to be," she said, relishing the upper hand. "Good night, Yukihira."

"Night, Nakiri."

Erina watched the closed front door for a while after he left, and wondered idly how long he would have stayed if he'd come to Denmark alone.

 **Author's Notes:** Hi everyone! I realize that this update is a month late with Starbucks, and I apologize. I've sort of been agonizing over how I wanted the timeline of this story to look, and then I stopped writing altogether. Thanks so much for reading, and I'm wishing everyone a phenomenal new year!


	6. A Tale of Two Friend Groups (Part 1)

**A Tale of Two Friend Groups** _(Part 1)_

It was the end of the work week for Tadokoro Megumi. After five days of manning the kitchen at the Ritz Carlton on Central Park, she could finally attend to the tasks that meant the most to her—watering the fire-escape vegetable garden, writing letters to her family back in Tohoku.

But the most important item on Megumi's to-do list was planning Fumio-san's 85th birthday celebration. For weeks now, she had spent her days off phoning and emailing Polar Star alums from over thirty Totsuki generations. She had even gotten the likes of Doujima Gin and Ebisawa Reiko to RSVP yes.

Upon entering her apartment, Megumi noticed two things amiss. The leaves of her pepper plant needed trimming, and there was a stranger helping herself to tea on the living room couch.

"U-um, excuse me," Megumi said as she approached the woman, torn between calling the police and offering her some dorayaki to go with her tea. "Who are you?"

"Oh." The woman, dressed in a smart business suit, looked startled. She fumbled through her purse for an ornate looking envelope. "Pardon my intrusion! My name is Michelle. I work at the WGO office here in Manhattan."

"I see," Megumi said, nodding warily. "I wasn't aware your organization was here as well."

"How naive, Miss Tadokoro," Michelle said with an airy laugh. "It's natural that the WGO would have a firm presence in any place where magnificent food is being served."

Off the top of her head, Megumi could think about a thousand places―starting with her hometown—that served happy customers beyond the WGO's sphere of influence, but decided to save her retorts for more pressing matters. "May I ask what you're doing in my home?"

"Ah, right. My supervisor is on the selection committee for the World Culinary Conference, and he asked me to deliver this invitation to Chef Yukihira."

Megumi did all she could to keep her mouth from hanging ajar. The World Culinary Conference was a networking opportunity meant to connect rising stars to the gourmet world's super elite. Less than ten percent of Totsuki graduates ever earned an invitation, and even fewer did so as young alumni.

"That's amazing!" she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "He'll be so excited."

"Excellent. I'll entrust this to you, then," the WGO underling said before handing Megumi the envelope and standing to take her leave. "Thanks for the tea."

"Um, before you go...how exactly did you get in here?" Megumi asked.

The woman smirked at the question. "The WGO knows no barriers," she explained before letting herself out.

When Souma came home from work that evening, just as Megumi was putting the finishing touches on dinner, the first thing he did was come over and start kissing her. Megumi smiled into it, almost forgetting the monkfish stew on the stove and the WGO envelope resting on the coffee table.

"Mail came for you today," she said once they parted, trying her best to sound neutral. She didn't want to risk ruining the surprise.

He didn't end up opening it until close to midnight, after they had eaten dinner and made love and traded stories about the day's kitchen mishaps and hard to please customers. It was one of those lazy, chilling-in-pjs evenings that she'd become protective of, given their increasingly demanding work schedules.

When he finally got around to pulling out the invitation letter, Megumi's chest began to ache with a breath she didn't quite notice she'd been holding. She admonished herself silently as she sat on her side of the bed, watching him.

"This is insane!" He turned towards her with those bright eyes, that full grin. "I got into the WCC." Then he must have read something in her expression, or lack thereof. "Did you already know?"

Megumi smiled sheepishly. "A WGO agent came to hand deliver it earlier this evening," she explained, before leaning over to peck his cheek. "Congratulations. I know how hard you've worked for this."

"Thanks, Megumi." Souma scratched the back of his head in that shy way he did whenever she praised him like this.

She kissed his neck a few times before glancing down at the letter. "So what are the details?"

"It's going to be in Amsterdam this year," he said. "Next month, on the weekend of the fourth."

"Oh." Megumi's brow furrowed when she heard the date.

"What's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing," she said. Well, it wasn't _nothing_. "It's just...that's the weekend of Fumio-san's party." She knew the dorm mother and all their friends from the Polar Star were excited to see them. It would have been the first time all of them got together since graduation. "But this is more important. You should definitely go."

In the weeks leading up to the conference, Megumi would wish that she hadn't seen the relief on his face as she excused him—that he hadn't agreed to abandon their joint commitment quite so quickly.

She hated herself for the twinge of frustration that rose within her whenever he brought it up in conversation— _I wonder who the speaker is? You think Nakiri and Hayama are gonna be there too?_ — as the act of resenting her significant other for doing something she literally told him to do smacked of a type of pettiness she hadn't thought herself capable of.

The morning they rode the rickety A train out to JFK, prepared to fly out of different terminals, Megumi still nursed a belief that he would change his mind and return to Japan with her. He had always been able to read her mind before, to know what she wanted.

But after he walked her to her airline's check-in, he didn't buy another ticket. He just kissed the top of her head and asked her to call when she landed.

Then, Megumi speculated as she boarded her economy class flight, he probably went up to the first class lounge all WCC attendees enjoyed and drank top shelf bourbon and reviewed the restaurant proposal he'd been crafting after hours.

He probably didn't think twice.

* * *

The conference hotel in Amsterdam was right on the water, and just as he was checking in, Souma saw none other than Nakiri Alice stepping down from a luxury yacht.

She marched into the lobby wearing oversized sunglasses and an all white pantsuit. In the past several months, Deconstruct Denmark had become a runaway success, and it definitely showed in the way the Nakiri heiress carried herself.

Alice gave a small wave when she noticed Souma. "There you are, Yukihira! I was hoping I'd be able to give you the itinerary."

Souma gestured to the packet of conference materials he'd picked up at the reception desk. "You mean these?"

Alice laughed a bit. "Oh, no. I mean the _social_ itinerary. It wasn't easy, but I was able to find out who from Totsuki got invited to this thing. The whole squad is coming."

"Wait, which squad?" While they were in school, there had been an incredibly large friend group that fissioned off into subgroups as needed.

"Labcoat Trio, plus you, Erina, and Hisako," she explained. "That's it from our year, but Isshiki, Kinokuni, Tsukasa, Kobayashi, Saito, and Momo all got invites too. Anyway, we're all going out tonight after the opening ceremonies. It's been way too long since we've had a rager."

Souma considered this for a minute. Something about treating this trip too much like a vacation made him uneasy. "I don't know. I mostly came here to pitch my restaurant idea."

Alice chuckled a bit. "I see that Erina's gotten to you. But where do you think you're really going to get to know potential investors? In this world, you gotta work hard and play hard."

Souma smirked a bit. "I'll think about it."

"Nothing to think about," Alice replied. "I'll see you tonight."

* * *

A nostalgic feeling came over Megumi as she stood in the kitchen of the Polar Star dorm and cooked alongside Yuki and Ryoko. They had come downstairs early, before six, so all the food would be ready by the time guests started to arrive.

"I'm surprised you're up so early, Yuki," Ryoko teased, and Megumi laughed. Back in high school, Yoshino Yuki could always be counted on to sleep until noon.

The brown haired woman merely shrugged. "My sleep schedule has been all over the place since I started working on the cruise ship. Besides, Alice has been posting about the WCC and I literally can't stop watching."

"Isn't it just a bunch of talks and business deals?" Ryoko asked with a shrug.

"Um, no!" Yuki turned her phone so her friends could see the Instagram photos herself. "At least not at night, anyway."

"Oh wow," Ryoko said. "They're basically just club hopping at this point."

"Right! I'm so jealous!" Yuki whined.

Megumi didn't exactly want to look, but she did anyway. And when she saw the pictures of her boyfriend popping champagne in a smoky nightclub with Alice and company, she couldn't help but roll her eyes.

Lovely priorities.

"What's the matter, Megumi?" Ryoko asked.

"Nothing." But she kept scrolling, and the more she saw, the more this new frustration mounted. She stopped at an image of the six of them clustered around a table lined end to end with tequila shots—Souma next to Erina, probably daring her to take another.

She sighed, handed the phone back to Yuki, and resumed making her onigiri, squeezing the rice a bit more tightly than necessary.

"It's okay if you're a little angry with him," Ryoko said with a knowing smile. "It's perfectly normal."

"Why would I be mad?" Megumi asked. "It's a great opportunity."

"But he already had plans with you."

The executive chef shrugged, noting how much tension in her shoulders she had to push through in order to do so. "No one gets invited to that kind of event and doesn't go."

"Well, Isshiki-senpai didn't go," Yuki chimed in. "Personally, I think he's insane for passing up the invite, but he said Fumio-san will only turn 85 once."

"So it is possible, then," Megumi said, mostly to herself. That was something. "We should probably get started on the cake."

 **Author's Notes:** Hi everyone! So I've actually been thinking about the events of this chapter (a major networking event coinciding with a personal or "family" event) ever since I started getting questions about the underlying causes of Souma and Megumi's relationship. This is going to be a two part chapter, and the second installment is going to focus more on Souma's side of things (with some pre-Sorina and Akisako moments) and the more general split that takes place within the 92nd generation. I'm really interested in hearing what you guys think about Souma and Megumi's first rough patch. Thanks for reading, everyone, and I hope you enjoy the weekend!


	7. A Tale of Two Friend Groups (Part 2)

**A Tale of Two Friend Groups (Part 2)**

Let the record show that absolutely no part of Hayama Akira was trying to get out of bed on the first morning of the World Culinary Conference. Only the laminated business proposals in his bag and the smell of French roast wafting from coffee maker compelled him get up despite his pounding headache.

This would be the last time he ever listened to Alice. About anything.

"It's about time you got up," Hisako said as she glanced up from her ironing. "The first set talks starts in an hour." Once satisfied with the state of her blouse, she put it on over her camisole and started buttoning it.

Akira was not particularly surprised that he'd ended up sleeping with his ex after the long night of clubbing; that was more or less consistent with how they've interacted with each other since graduation. What he found shocking was the fact that he spent the night in her hotel room, and that she didn't seem the slightest bit hungover.

"Why are you not dead?"

"I'm invincible," she said, deadpan, before walking over to the room's mini-fridge. Then she tossed a plastic bottle filled with an unidentified green liquid in his general direction. "And I've perfected my hangover cure."

Akira smirked despite himself. Leave it to Arato to be the only one prepared for last night's endeavors. "I hate you." He took a sip, and almost instantly the room stopped spinning. "You should sell this."

Hisako shook her head as she donned her blazer. "It's part of a larger concept," she said. "Part cafe, part restaurant. And not all of us put our best ideas up for sale."

Akira shook his head. There it was again—this same fight. "What is it that you have against making a profit?"

"Nothing. I just think protecting one's intellectual property is more valuable in the long run," she said.

"That may be true," he conceded. "But some of us have to think about the short run, too."

Hisako rolled her eyes at this, and for a moment it looked like she was really going to lay into him, like she hadn't in years, but instead she just sighed. "I'm just saying, this is not a field in which everything should be about making money. What we do sustains the body, creates life. There's an art to it."

Akira glanced at her for a moment. Her no-nonsense attitude made it easy to forget how idealistic she was, how much she appreciated beauty in the world. If only she knew how much her pragmatic father cared about cash and bloodlines—at least enough to make some very convincing threats.

In the end, he merely shrugged at her assertions. "If I do what I need to now, then my children can be artists."

Hisako seemed to consider this for a moment, her cheeks turning faintly pink. Where had her mind gone this time?

"Y-you're hopeless, you know," she stammered out after a pause. "Anyway, good luck with the investors and such. I should meet Erina downstairs. Let yourself out whenever."

* * *

Tadokoro Megumi was not one to indulge in self-praise, but as she watched the Polar Star glow under the right lighting, with the right guests filling the building with laughter as they dined on just the right menu, she was forced to admit that she'd outdone herself this time.

"Another top-notch event by Tadokoro Megumi," Chef Doujima Gin said as he approached her on the balcony.

"I can't take all the credit," she replied, more out of habit than anything else. "Yuki-chan and the others helped out a lot."

Doujima smiled at her knowingly, and then glanced out at the crowd out in the garden once more. "How has New York been treating you and Yukihira?"

"It's very busy, but I like living there," she said, smiling for a moment as she thought about the memories they'd made, the shitty little apartment they'd turned into a home. "However, I have a feeling we won't be there for much longer."

"I take it that Yukihira is looking to open his own place, World Culinary Conference and all."

"Please don't say anything to Shinomiya-senpai," Megumi urged.

"Of course not." Doujima laughed. "Not that I can see someone like him taking offense to a young talent doing what all chefs ought to do. So, what will you do when he opens his restaurant?"

Megumi shrugged, shocked and annoyed in equal parts when she realized she hadn't thought much about that. "I'll help him out if he needs it, or take a job in the kitchen of another hotel."

Doujima nodded a few times. "Can I speak frankly with you for a moment, Tadokoro-san?"

"Of course, chef."

"I think you should come work for me," he said. "I believe that the deputy director position is right for you. It would offer you the challenge and the autonomy necessary for you to reach your full potential as a chef and hospitality specialist."

Megumi clasped her hands in front of her to keep them from trembling. She had assumed that the offer would be something she told her grandchildren about offhandedly in fifty years or so—a story of the thing she could have done, the life that could've been hers.

She couldn't believe that it was happening again.

"I-I'm honored by the prospect, as I was the last time you mentioned it to me, but—"

"You don't have to answer right away," Doujima told her, handing her a business card. "Take some time to think it over."

With that, Doujima Gin left to rejoin the party, leaving Megumi alone with her thoughts. Or at least, she thought she was alone until none other than Yoshino Yuki pounced on her.

"Megumi, Megumi, MEGUMI!" she cried, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Oh, no.

"Y-Yuki-chan, how much of that did you overhear?" she asked, although she could tell by the sparkles in her friend's eyes that she knew everything.

"This job is gonna make you a total VIP. Just think about all the parties you'll be invited to, all the hotels, and the conferences, and—" Yuki trailed off and stopped jumping. She looked Megumi up and down. "And you're going to say no? Why?"

"I can't just drop everything and move back to Tokyo," she said with a sigh. "I have a job. I have a boyfriend."

At this, Yuki's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. "This is about Yukihira, isn't it?"

"Yuki-chan—"

"Don't get me wrong, you and Yukihira are hashtag relationship goals, but you can't seriously be thinking about letting an opportunity like this pass you by because of a boy!"

Megumi thought of the way Yuki had ended things with Marui the moment she'd gotten her job offer in Munich, the way Arato-san put her breakup with Hayama-kun on her friggin Google calendar so nothing would keep her from her dream job in Geneva. Was she a fool? Was there some memo that she'd missed? Was this what had been in that Totsuki Women's Association newsletter Hojo-san used to send out?

"I," she started, her voice faltering. "I don't want to break up with him."

"Nobody said break up," Yuki told her. "Just talk to him. Say, 'Listen, I've been supporting you this whole time, no matter what type of crazy shit you decided to do, and now it's my turn.' If he doesn't want this for you, he's not worth your time."

"I know," Megumi said. "I know. It would be crazy to say no to this for the second time."

"The _second_ time?"

And at that particular moment, Megumi realized precisely how much catching up she and her friends had to do.

* * *

The conference proceedings broke for lunch at one, and Erina could tell as soon as Yukihira Souma reached their table at The Duchess that his meeting with the investors had gone well.

"I take it that I was right to order champagne." Erina took off her sunglasses and placed them atop her hair.

The little fool couldn't stop smiling, and the Nakiri heiress bit the inside of her cheek to stave off her own grin.

"Details. Now," she said.

"It's gonna be in Paris," he said. "St. Germain."

"That's competitive territory," she told him. "As I'm sure you know, the original Shino's and Eden by Tsukasa Eishi are in the same district. A lackluster opening would make it very easy to go bankrupt and fold within a year."

Yukihira shook his head at her. "Do you always have to be so negative?"

Erina merely shrugged as their waiter came along to pour the champagne and take their orders. "Negativity is my gift to you," she said after a sip of bubbly. "Without it, I bet you'd carry on like a Disney protagonist."

"You're the worst," he told her. "But I appreciate it."

"You better," she replied, rolling her eyes. There were people in this world who paid inordinate amounts of money for the advice she tossed his way for free.

"So, what's your next move, Nakiri?" he asked. "People have been asking when you're gonna take over the academy. Or the world."

Erina gave a little laugh at this. "The world is mine already. Ask about the academy in fifty years or so." She had way too much living to do before she considered becoming headmaster of Totsuki. "This stays between us," she said in a warning tone.

"Naturally."

"I've been playing with a restaurant concept for a while now. The site's already under construction, but I won't be ready for it for another year or two."

"Really, where?"

"Madrid."

"Nice," he said, smirking at her. "I bet you're glad you didn't choose Paris, huh?"

"I'm actually a little sad," she conceded. "It'd be fun to run you and your peasant eatery out of business."

"You've been saying shit like that for years, but I'm still waiting on that soul-crushing defeat you promised."

"Keep testing me, and you'll get it sooner rather than later," she said. "Congratulations, though. I hope you don't fuck it up."

* * *

When Megumi came home from the airport, the apartment was filled with the savory scent of beef and rich lardons. The table was set with red wine and candles and the good silverware her mother had given them before they moved to New York.

This did not bode well.

The plan, which she had gone over extensively with Yuki and Ryoko before boarding her flight, had been to get straight to the point. She was going to tell him that Chef Doujima had made her an incredible offer, that she was going to take it, and that she wanted him to come with her. But a romantic dinner would definitely complicate things.

She dropped her duffel bag in the living room and padded over to the kitchen, where her boyfriend was plating two servings of boeuf bourguignon. A smile found its way onto her face. That was the first dish they ever made together, way back in their first year at Totsuki. She had known since then that he was something special.

"How was your flight?" he asked once he saw her.

"It was alright," she replied. "Should I change?" she asked when she noticed he was wearing a light blue button down shirt and black jeans that one might mistake for dress pants under the right lighting. She looked down at her leggings and hoodie questioningly.

"Nah," he said. "Just sit down."

Megumi, who had spent the last several hours hustling through airports and subway stations, did not have to be told twice.

"What's the occasion for all this?" she asked.

"I just missed you."

Megumi raised an eyebrow. She knew that he had only gotten in a few hours earlier, and must have gotten to work as soon as he arrived. "Are you sure that's all?"

Souma chuckled a little bit at this, and then reached across the table to take her hand. Despite the range of emotions Megumi had been feeling lately, the gesture made her heart start beating double time.

"I can never get anything past you."

"And I don't know why you try," she replied. "So what happened in Amsterdam? Besides jello shots with Alice, anyway."

He winced. "You saw that?"

"All over Instagram," she said.

"Are you mad?"

"Of course not," she said, feeling a tiny twinge of guilt. He never kept anything from her. Megumi sighed. She supposed it was really time for some radical honesty on her end. "But I was a little annoyed when I first saw it. I know it's perfectly normal for us to go out separately, but I felt kind of left out, and I missed you. And...whenever I see you with Nakiri-san, I just…" She sighed. Honesty was hard.

"Megs, I haven't felt anything for Nakiri since we were second years."

"I know," she said. "It's silly, but...I've always felt like...like someone like her would be your endgame."

"Megumi, you are my endgame. I don't want to be with anyone besides you, ever. You've had my back since day one. I can't even imagine my life without you."

Megumi felt her eyes welling up with tears; was it even possible to love somebody this much?

"So where are we moving to set up your new restaurant?" she asked. She had known before he left that he'd come home with some extraordinary offer.

"Paris, if you want to," he said, leaning down to kiss her hand. "Only if you want to."

"I want to go wherever you go," she said, and meant it, knowing that she would turn down Chef Doujima's golden offer for the second time.

As for the rest of the night, the romantic dinner would go uneaten, and they would spend the next several hours perfecting their French.

 **Author's Notes:** Thanks for reading, everyone! I know I said I would go into Souma's POV in this chapter, but for some reason, it just wasn't working. There will probably be a significant time skip between this chapter and the next one. Also, this story is currently severely lacking in Takumi, and I hope to rectify that soon! Anyway, I hope you all have a great day!


	8. Chapter 8

Megumi had known for years now that her boyfriend had an uncanny talent for making things difficult for himself, but his endless ways of doing so never ceased to amaze her.

You see, five months ago they had packed up everything they owned and moved from New York to Paris—him with the intention of opening his first restaurant, and her with an unrelenting desire to stay by his side.

Souma could have done what most chefs would do—take his savings and his seed money and start small, grow his reputation and clientele—but he had never been one to play it safe.

He had chosen a location right in the middle of the sixth arrondissement, within blocks of both Shinomiya Kojirou and Tsukasa Eishi's culinary fortresses, and he hoped to compete in this high profile venue using low prices and common ingredients.

And naturally, he was working quadruple time to make his menu stand out.

"What are you making?" Megumi asked after she came home from her shift at the Shangri-La. An intoxicating savory smell was wafting out from the kitchen.

"Stuffed quail," he explained as he took his dish out of the oven. "How was work?"

Megumi shrugged. "Some of the customers were a bit difficult," she said. In her experience as an executive chef, the super wealthy tended to be, but that was who the hospitality industry catered to in these city centers. It was a world away from her family ryokan in more ways than one. "But it was fine."

Scattered around the kitchen and living room were balled up pieces of notebook paper with five, ten, fifteen riffs off the same recipe ideas. There were also three half-empty coffee mugs that he must have abandoned as soon as he was caffeinated enough to remain upright.

"Did you eat yet?" he asked her.

Megumi shook her head. "But I won't try anything strange today," she warned him. At this point, about one in ten of his recipes would turn out a failed experiment, and at his current rate of innovation, Megumi was subjected to four or five of these horrors each day.

Souma laughed at the half-terrified face she made and then plated the quail for her along with a soup-trio starter served in shot glasses.

Megumi took a seat at the kitchen table and let him serve her. The deep savory flavor sent tremors through her, made her eyes roll back. If not for her continued exposure to his cooking, she might have been flat on her back at the first bite.

"How's it taste?" he asked, all broad grins and honey eyes. A person who didn't know him as well would have no inkling of the trial and error that had gone into it, the rejected drafts and countless hours of revision. They would never guess that he was running himself ragged.

"It tastes wonderful," she said, meaning it completely. "Now add it to your menu and get some rest, please."

He sighed, running a hand through his red hair. "Come on, Megs," he said. "I was kind of looking for feedback."

"I'm not a haute cuisine critic," she said, not for the first time that week. "I won't go inventing flaws in a dish that's already great, just for you to spend the next twelve hours obsessing over it."

"It's not obsessing. I'm just trying to get this right." Even as he spoke, he was scrawling something onto a notepad. A revision, maybe, or an idea for a new dish entirely. "Nakiri said if I fuck up the opening, the restaurant will go under in three months."

It took everything within Megumi to keep from stating that in this particular instance she didn't give a flying fuck what Nakiri-san thought. Still, she felt certain that the possessor of the god tongue could convince him of anything. "I know the restaurant is very important to you, and Nakiri-san is a reliable source when it comes to these things, but the average customer would love this dish, and that's who you're cooking for, right?"

"Of course, but I-" He never did finish his thought, as just then his work phone started ringing. And when did he become the sort of person who needed a work phone? It seemed like another of the many invisible lines he had been crossing by the day. "I gotta take this."

"I know," she said, leaving him to go out on the fire escape with his phone and the half empty box of Marlboros she was ignoring right now, but wouldn't for much longer.

He would keep working long into the night, though Megumi could not be relied on to say whether or when he actually made it to bed. By now she had realized the futility of something like waiting up for him.

* * *

Though her work and studies brought her to Europe frequently, Arato Hisako did not often venture to Copenhagen. So the significance of her sudden visit was not lost on Alice, and it greatly saddened the Nakiri heiress that she would have to turn such an old and dear friend away from her home unsatisfied.

"You know I can't help you, Hishoko." She crossed one leg over the other and took a dainty sip of Darjeeling tea from a painted cup.

Hisako narrowed her eyes fractionally, her grip on her own teacup tightening ever so slightly. She was desperate, Alice could tell, but still clinging to her well-practiced composure, her steely nonchalance. "It's been almost a year. You and Kurokiba must know where he is."

"Ryo-kun might, but good luck getting him to talk when he wouldn't even say anything to me, his _soulmate_. Like can you even believe the disloyalty engendered by this so called bro code?"

The brief rant was met with a half-annoyed look from Hisako, who clearly wasn't interested in her long-term perfect relationship woes.

Alice shook her head. "And even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you."

"Why in the world not?"

"Because he'll be back when he makes his fortune, and if he didn't tell you anything, there has to be a reason for it."

Hisako rolled her eyes. "The reason must be that he wants me to never speak to him again." She placed her teacup down and crossed her arms over her chest. "I can understand wanting to start over after those Sendawara snakes stole his research, which is exactly why I told him not to take that job in the first place."

"You did warn him multiple times," Alice conceded.

"But to just disappear is so idiotic. He could be dead in a ditch somewhere and no one would know."

"We got from dumb to dead in a ditch really quickly, Hishoko. If you're that worried, why don't you just ask Professor Shiomi?"

"I came here because Jun called me and I couldn't tell her anything."

"Oh."

"He's just so prideful and selfish and-"

"And are you sure you don't just miss him?"

"As if I would! I'm only asking out of consideration for Jun. And I have a boyfriend, anyway."

"Does 'boyfriend' know you came overseas to inquire after your ex?"

The pregnant silence between them spoke for itself.

Alice just sighed and poured more tea into their cups. "You two are hopeless," she said. "At any rate, since you're here, we might as well have lunch."

* * *

"Thanks for coming all the way out here," Ikumi said as she started closing up her beachside shack.

"It's a nice place," Erina replied between sips of rum punch. After weeks of writing restaurant reviews in her apartment, reclining on the beach in Los Angeles was exactly her idea of paradise. "I'm glad you invited me to your kitchen."

"It's really more of a pet project than anything else," Ikumi said. "My father is making me get a business degree out here, and if I didn't start cooking again, I was going to lose my shit."

"I hear that." Erina adjusted her sunglasses, trying to remain present in the conversation despite the perfect beachside dish coming together in her mind's eye. She would have to get back to Madrid sooner rather than later. "Are you going to relocate to Italy when you graduate?"

"Hard no." Ikumi grabbed her car keys and led Erina towards her bright red convertible. "I'm breaking up with Takumi the next time we see each other."

Erina's eyes widened a bit. The last time she checked, Takumi and Ikumi had been as solid as Alice and Kurokiba or...or Yukihira and Tadokoro. "I don't mean to pry, but what happened?"

"Nothing happened, really. It's just the distance. Every time he's supposed to come out here, something comes up. If it's not his father, it's his uncle, or his grandmother, or the fucking trattoria. I'm just tired." She made a sharp turn onto the highway, just to get stuck in gridlock. She muttered a curse under her breath. "This is the worst thing about L.A. If you ever want to set up shop in California, just go to the Bay Area."

"Noted," Erina replied as she took in the traffic jam. They'd probably be stuck in it for at least twenty minutes. "So what happened when you went out to Tuscany?"

"Oh my god. His parents were so rude to me the entire time, especially his mother, and he didn't do anything about it. The only person who bothered to stick up for me was Isami. And then later he tried to explain that they were 'just a bit conservative.'"

At this, Erina couldn't help but snort a little. "What does Takumi Aldini know about conservative? Did he grow up wearing Victorian ball gowns around the house?"

"That's exactly what I said! And you know what, if he's going to let his mother slut shame me for not wearing a turtleneck in the middle of July, we don't need to be in a relationship. At all."

Not for the first time, Erina felt glad that all her relationships thus far had been short, sweet, and shallow. All this aggravation would only distract her from truly pursuing her cooking.

"When you make the split official, there are some guys I can introduce to you."

"Are they on the national football team?" Ikumi asked, smirking.

"Naturally." It had taken Erina a while to warm up to the athletic types, but they had grown on her.

"Yes!" Ikumi turned the air conditioning up in her car, seeming to finally accept their lot. "You and Arato-san have been doing it right this whole time."

Were they, though? Truth be told, only time would tell. But she carried the image of the dish with her as the car inched into the horizon, and forgot to call her new boyfriend when they got back to Ikumi's place.

 **Author's Notes:** I am so, so sorry for the absurdly late update! This has been my first year out of undergrad, and between work, grad school, and writer's block, I've been struggling to take the time to work on this story! In subsequent chapters, I may try to focus on the splintering of the 92nd generation into different social spheres, an occurrance that greatly informs my next gen stories that stem from On Casual Commitments, in addition to the development of individual romantic relationships. Thank you so much for reading, and I will try my best to get the next chapter out soon!


	9. Chapter 9

On the day of the soft opening, Souma woke up at half past five with Megumi's hair tickling his face. He took a moment to watch her, study the serene rise and fall of her chest, and kissed the patch of skin just below her earlobe.

She smiled and shifted in her sleep, released a soft sigh of contentment, and Souma had to remind himself why he couldn't just get back into bed with her.

When he stepped out of the master suite half an hour later, he saw his father sitting on the couch, flipping channels lazily.

Souma waited a full thirty seconds before reacting; he had to make sure his mind wasn't playing tricks on him.

"Pops?"

"Yo, Souma," Jouichirou greeted. "You know, you guys have got to get a better cable package. Where are all the sports?"

"Look, the rent is so high in this neighborhood, and Megumi prefers the movie channels so..." He began to explain his T.V. plight, much in the same way he had to whenever Kurokiba came over, when a glaring detail returned to the forefront of his mind. "Wait a minute. What are you even doing here?"

His father shrugged before settling on a rerun of some football match and putting the remote down. "I told you last week I'd try to come in the morning."

"Yeah, but it's not like you ever get anywhere when you plan to."

Souma recalled him being minutes to days late for every ceremony and graduation he'd had since kindergarten.

Jouichirou chuckled a bit. "I guess that's true, but Gin's been sending me calendar reminders for the past three weeks. He said he wouldn't stop until I got on the plane."

At this, Souma shook his head. "Listen, pops. I've gotta head to the restaurant soon, but make yourself comfortable."

"Have a smoke with me first," he said before drawing two cigarettes from his pocket.

"Out on the fire escape," Souma told him, resigned to the fact that his father would do things on his own time no matter what he had to say about it.

"Megumi still asleep?"

"Yeah. She took the day off from work," Souma explained. "Her family's flying in early this afternoon."

Jouichirou whistled. "I remember cooking for in-laws," he said, lighting his cigarette and his son's. "Guess you really can't fuck this one up."

"Trust me, I know. Nakiri's told me enough times already." With no effort at all, his mind conjured the impassive look she maintained each time he put his all on a plate for her.

"You and Erina still close?" Jouichirou asked, wearing an expression his son couldn't quite place.

Souma smirked a little, thinking of all the ignored phone calls and changed mailing addresses. "No one really gets to be close to Nakiri, except Arato and Alice. But we talk every now and then, when she feels like it."

The perplexing expression returned to Jouichirou's face for the briefest of moments, but it was gone before Souma thought to ask what it meant. "Your mother would be proud," he said after a long pause. "She always joked about moving to Paris — only to annoy your grandfather, but still."

Souma nodded, recalling the jovial arguments in fits and starts. He found himself half-drowned in thoughts of the diner — Yukihira special menus and crude compliments from the regulars — when his father spoke again.

"You know there's no coming back from this," he said. "After tonight, no matter what you do, the name Yukihira will always be famous."

"Is it really that bad?"

Jouichirou took a long drag from his cigarette before responding; he let his eyes draw closed. "I think you know already, I never wanted to send you to Totsuki. Never would have done it if the old man hadn't been so persistent. But what's done is done. Best you can do now is —"

"Don't fuck up?"

"Now you're getting it," he replied, slapping his son on the shoulder. "Don't fuck up, and try to remember what's important to you. That's what'll keep you from losing your mind. Oh, and Souma."

"Yeah?"

"I think you were supposed to be at the restaurant fifteen minutes ago."

"Oh shit!" And with that, he put out his cigarette, sprinted to the front door, and hoped his father wouldn't burn the place down.

* * *

Arato Hisako was convinced that the universe had no sympathy for her. That was the only explanation for why only a matter of weeks after she'd put Akira out of her mind and started getting serious with someone new, she saw his stupid, smug face on the cover of Business Insider.

He looked so cool and arrogant in the photograph, standing by a window in his new Dubai skyscraper, that part of Hisako felt inclined to throw the entire magazine out the window.

"But when did he even—"

"Ignore it," Erina advised as they rode through the streets of Paris in a stretch limo, on their way to buy outfits for the pre-open. "You decided you're done with him, so be done."

"You're right." Hisako heaved a gargantuan sigh, knowing for certain that he would be there for the launch of Maison de Yukihira tonight, and that it would take everything within her to keep from slapping him into infinity.

As they moved from boutique to boutique, Hisako noticed something peculiar about her friend's behavior. Although she'd always had impeccable style, Erina scarcely had either the time or the patience to indulge in all-day shopping sprees. In fact, she often sent a professional shopper out with her measurements and outsourced the task of buying clothes entirely.

But now she glided through the racks with laser focus, moving in and out of dressing rooms without even the slightest huff of irritation.

"Are you looking for something specific, Erina-sama?" she asked after she walked out of their seventh store empty-handed. For her part, Hisako had long since decided on a navy blue scoop neck dress.

"No. It's just, you know how those food magazines photograph me every chance they get. I figured I should try to make an impression this time instead of getting caught unawares."

Hisako sensed bullshit — and she saw that her best friend was touching the back of her neck the way she always did when she had a certain diner chef on the brain. But she wouldn't give her any grief about it. Hisako knew better than anyone the agony derived from affections that cropped up where they didn't belong.

When Erina found the right dress, an onyx column gown with a daring slit running up the left side, Hisako smiled and found her gold earrings and bangles to match.

That evening Alice met them at their hotel, dressed in the type of chic all white jumpsuit that was becoming typical of her. She took one look at her cousin, from her matte burgundy lipstick to the 100 mm red bottoms adorning her feet and exchanged a knowing look with Hisako.

"So we're out to break hearts tonight?" Alice asked, chuckling as she helped herself to the vodka in the minibar.

"Just the usual one, courtesy of the god tongue," Erina replied, deadpan, and Hisako felt a creeping suspicion that she had been referring to her own.

* * *

To say that it had been a good year for Yoshino Yuki would be a gross understatement. Almost overnight she had gone from cruise ship cook to Tasty producer with talks about her own Food Network special in the works.

For the first time in her life, she'd flown to Paris in a business class cube and she had no intention of ever downgrading again.

She had spent the last few months feeling like the girl-next-door made good. But once she stepped out of her cab and saw the culinary juggernauts waiting to enter Yukihira's debut restaurant, she was reminded once again of the abyss that stood between her and the true elite.

She had been standing by the coat check, caught between the impulse to network and the desire to search for a familiar face when she locked eyes with Marui Zenji, who was handing off his blazer to the attendant.

"Oh, Yoshino-san!" he said, smiling at her. "I thought it'd be ages before I found someone I knew."

Yuki returned the smile, noting that he had grown a little since Fumio-san's 85th. Was that even possible? She had maintained the same shrimpy stature since their last year of junior high school. "It's been awhile, Marui. Congratulations on finishing your degree, by the way."

"Thank you." He looked down, adjusting those absurdly round spectacles of his.

"What will you do now?" Yuki asked.

"I'm actually starting a postgraduate program," he explained.

Yuki rolled her eyes a bit. "Honestly, Marui. At this rate you'll be in your fifties before you open a restaurant."

He chuckled a bit. "You sound like my parents."

They drifted away from the coat check then, glancing about the clusters of gourmands sipping cocktails and chatting before the start of the dinner service. Yuki's eyes nearly popped out of her head when she spotted Elaine Shiraz and a handful of editors from True Taste magazine.

"Yukihira's really done well for himself, huh?" she said, more to herself than to Zenji. She still had such a long way to go.

"He's not the only one," he told her.

"I guess you're right. Somewhere in this dining room, Shoji is probably shooting his shot with Arato-san."

This earned a full-bellied laugh from Marui, the likes of which usually only came out after his third drink. "Undeniably true," he replied. "But not what I was referring to."

"Then what—"

"I always knew you were meant to be on television."

For a moment, Yuki was taken aback. Of everyone she'd ever known, this man had to be the least aware of pop culture. So how could it be that he was following her career down its media-saturated path?

"You're ridiculous," she said, as that was the only way she'd ever known how to deal with the absurdly high regard he held her in. "We should go find a table for four. You know Shun and Ryoko won't be here until the food's nearly out."

Marui's eyes darkened with regret. "Actually, Yoshino-san, I'm here with someone tonight."

"Oh. Right. Sorry, I shouldn't have assumed," she said, trying to clear the surprise from her expression.

"But I'm sure she wouldn't mind if the five of us—"

"No, that kind of thing drives front of the house staff crazy," Yuki said, a shiver running down her spine as she recalled her dark hostessing days. "Don't keep her waiting. It was good seeing you, though."

"Keep in touch," he told her. "My number's the same."

Yuki didn't bother telling him that her number had changed three times in as many years. She had no intention of calling anyway.

* * *

It was rare for Megumi to spend much time thinking about her appearance, but because this was his night she had curled the ends of her hair and put on the short red dress with the halter neckline. After getting her mother and grandfather — who had flown all the way to Europe for the first time — comfortable at their table, she started making her rounds, thanking all their friends from Totsuki and New York for coming.

"Ohhh, Megumi-chan, why so gorgeous?" the newly minted Shinomiya Hinako squealed once she spotted her.

"Thank you, Inui-senpai," Megumi managed to say before the older woman pulled her into a hug so tight she started to see stars.

"Yukihira's a fool if he doesn't propose to you tonight."

"He's already a fool for thinking he can compete in this venue, green upstart that he is," Shinomiya interjected.

"If I recall, you were even younger than Yukihira-kun is now when you opened Shino's, and even less experienced," Hinako pointed out. She turned to Megumi with a conspiratorial grin. "He's just upset because he lost his best cook."

"Ignore, my wife. She's delusional," Shinomiya said, pushing his sleek glasses up on his nose. "But when are we going to see your opening, bumpkin?"

The question brought an unexpected flush to Megumi's cheeks. "Oh...well I've been—"

"Too distracted by dick to focus on your craft?" he asked, rubbing his right temple. "I thought I taught you better than this."

"Oh, leave her alone. She's in love, like us."

Shinomiya Kojirou shook his head. "The jury's still out on that one."

Megumi laughed a bit before wishing them well and moving on to the next set of familiar faces. She would continue on in this way, trying to let her old mentor's comments slide off her like water on ducks' wings, until the dinner service began.


End file.
